The Saga Continues…

January 4, 2012

I know I’ve been neglecting my blog lately. I wish I could say it was because I was too busy all this time playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, but the truth is more mundane. Between Christmas and New Year’s and family staying in town for a week, I just haven’t had much time for blogging…or gaming, for that matter. My mother-in-law is an awesome lady, but I wanted to show her that her son married someone who can do more than just sit in front of a computer all night and slash her lightsaber at pixels. You know what I mean! We’re all familiar with the drill!

But I guess it’s good sometimes to have a break. I don’t want to ramble away my first post of 2012, so I hope everyone had blast over the holidays, got great presents, some nice time off, good gaming in, etc. I am now going to dutifully play catch-up on everything I’ve put on hold over the last two weeks — including playing more SWTOR.

Most of my guildies are already in the mid to high 40s in their leveling, with a couple hitting 50 last week, and here I am still dawdling at 35. On the bright side, I stayed up until almost 3am last night finishing Chapter 1 on my Jedi Knight and received my Legacy. And yes, I got it at level 35 because I’ve been constantly 3-4 levels ahead of content, ever fighting the risk of out-leveling even more by skipping the planet bonus series and some heroics. There’s just so much to do. And since I’m also doing space combat dailies and always leveling in a group, I’m doomed.

Though I do wonder if I’ve been subconsciously putting off getting my Legacy name all this time, because I have no clue what it’s going to be. Granted, I’m glad I reached this milestone, but honestly, how does one go about the process of creating a name for all characters across one’s account, present and future? Not something to be taken lightly. Seriously, I’m already a very indecisive person, this is just cruel.

I’m only level 21 or so (not helped by my accidentally starting to play my first character again) but from where I stand it seems like a wave of alts are coming up through the levels now, so even if most of the mains are ahead of you, you’ll probably find plenty of alts in your level range.

Space combat is the salvation of my Gunslinger. I don’t love playing him but I do enjoy space combat and can level him that way for a while!

Exactly! I got my smuggler through to the end of Chapter 1, then turned around to start a trooper alt. Originally, I only intended to level her up through Ord Mantell, so I could start supplying scavenged materials to my smuggler… and then I fell in love with the class.

So I’ve got a 35 and a 25. No worries! This came seems very alt-friendly. Always something in the works.

Don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Work and other family thing have kept me from leveling too much. My current solo main is 22 or 23 (I leveled twice last night). I have an SLC character about 18 or so. And my originally-intended solo main is left at 13. PLUS, I have a couple other alts I’ve dabbled with to the 3-6 range.

ALTOHOLIC!

Luckily, having established names, I can also plan a few legacy names (1st choice, 2nd choice, etc.) that fit the clan.

I ultimately went with a last name for my JK, using a last name of a character in one of my personal writing projects, one I’ve been working on since I was 14! So at least it does have some sort of meaning to me, but I just don’t think I’m RP-talented enough to come up with a “clan” idea like some of the amazing ones our guildies are coming up with!.

I have to admit, I don’t like the idea of forcing a name to be across all characters. I prefer choice. Then again, I’m not playing TOR since I don’t do subscription games, so I don’t guess they care what I think. :>

On my first MMO, I tried hard to keep up with the leveling with guildmates, but it became pretty clear that when you have people who can play all day and people who can only play a few hours in an evening, there’s not much way of doing it unless the all day folks keep an alt that they forcibly only run when the infrequent players can run. Even then you’re likely to end up with a few players slower than the other slow people, and I’ll probably be one of them. :>

On Pirates of the Burning Sea the other day, a new person asked how long it should take to get to level 50, and other society members reponded with “2-4 weeks”. My main just hit 29 after at least 6 months of playing her. And I’ve had an account for more than a year (first char left off at about level 10).

Yeah, I feel the same way so for a while I did consider thinking of a “The _______ Legacy” name. But then I think I found that even harder, because then I would have to come up with a reason why all my characters would be sharing that legacy and oh my god I probably thought too much into it, but ultimately I did want something that would make sense and that would feel comfortable for me :P

I’m glad the guild I’m in is so alt friendly, there are plenty of people in all level brackets right now. Though I was relieved to see I wasn’t actually that behind the curve, plus now that I’m free to play in the evenings again, my husband and I have been making good progress in our catching up.

You aren’t the only one who has gone off the grid recently – either due to the holidays or to gaming (or both).lol

The character that has become my quasi-main (my Imperial Agent) is sitting at 45, and most of my toons are somewhere much lower (mid-20’s for some, most below 15). Between all the holiday stuff, a New Year’s Eve party that got way crazier than intended (not on my end, but seeing others get shitfaced drunk is actually very entertaining – even more so to casually bring up the fact the next day), and various other things, I have put off hitting cap until I feel ready to do it. Therefore, Balthezar is just going to have to enjoy the Voss scenery a little longer.

The Legacy name was interesting. I did feel a sense of urgency trying to find a name that would fit across all races and all factions. It also took me awhile to rationalize why one name would fit across all classes especially considering 4 would be on the other faction.

In the end, I decided that my legacy would be something akin to a secret society that does not respect factional borders. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, but there is a society within that show of which Iroh was a part; it was a society of benders, from all nations, that worked above the normal power structure. I decided that my legacy name would be a society of various figures (my toons) that worked to their own ends after witnessing the corruption within both Imperial and Republic ranks. To that end, I found myself enjoying the process of finding connections between all my toons (or manufacturing them when none were available). Vette’s connection to Risha made an easy one between my Smuggler and Warrior, plus I had to imagine she (Vette) would’ve run into Mako at some point since both were so familiar with Nar Shaddaa (and I could see both at least knowing of my Smuggler, who made a name for herself on the Smuggler’s Moon). I also created my Sith Warrior and my Jedi Knight with distinctive scars on their faces – and decided that those scars came from a previous battle between the two, before either became what they are now (powerful apprentice to Darth Baras/Knight of the Jedi Order). My Consular is actually my Knight’s brother (same hair color and eye color, similar facial structures, differences in complexion and other things to make them stand out), while my Inquisitor was a former slave in service to my Sith Warrior’s household. Balthezar dealt with a lot of high level Sith throughout the early part of the IA story, so it wouldn’t have been strange at all for him to have heard of my Warrior’s progress and taken an interest, and so on.

If I ever find the time, I might write a full-fledged story about all this craziness…

In any case, my advice would be to choose a Legacy name that isn’t based on family. I can’t find any reason why a family between factions makes sense – but history is full of alliances that exist beyond normal faction rivalries. Think of your Legacy like an alliance. I find that works really well. That way when you change the nameplate to show “The _____ Legacy” under the name, it won’t seem like a strange family connection where none should exist – just an alliance that operates below the surface of Empire and Republic.

On a completely different note, glad your holidays went well. It’s good to see you back.

Anyway, you sound like you would fit in with some of the RP circles in my guild. I am really impressed with some of the back stories some of my guildies have come up with, complete with legacy and clan relationships and such. It really is quite amazing, I only wish I could be as imaginative and creative with my RP stories.

That’s why I ultimately chose to go the surname route instead of the “The ______ Legacy” route. I’m not sure if I could ever come up with something intricate enough to tie in the connection between my characters, etc.

I just got back from the holidays earlier this week. My SWTOR main is currently only 26, but I did manage to get in enough slicing before the great nerf that I had plenty for speeder training when I hit 25. Need to get back to the blogging, but so far since I’ve been back in town nearly every spare moment has been spent in SWTOR. I mean to at least to a short screenshot post some time soon.

I really really really should have gone slicing as one of my crew skills. Even with the nerf it would have been nice to get some credits, because right now my professions are taking me straight to the poorhouse! And I’m at level 38 right now, looks like that level 40 speeder will take a while.

I’ve been playing a decent amount since the “early start.” My Trooper is still my “main” at 29, but he actually sat at 26 for a while and got surpassed by my Shadow at 28 before I returned to my roots, so to speak. I also have a 20 Guardian and a 22 Sage, so yeah… alt-itis all around here.

I have a few other toons that have simply run up to the Fleet and talked to the skill trainers for the cheesy level boost you can do there as well. I know I’ll be getting to them eventually too.

But for now, I’m happy to be back on the trooper. Just barely got to Tatooine last night. Yeah, I know, it’s for level 24-28 and I’m 29, so it should be quite easy.

BTW, I’m Wahren in RMC ;-) Meylota, Gotter, and Jonna are the 3 alts, and they’re also in RMC. I’ll say hi the next time I see Sha’lanni on.